Humane Society seeks to reopen

Shelter forced to close due to costs

St. Augustine's Humane Society's Board of Directors is expected to put together a plan at a special meeting Thursday to reopen its shelter, which closed in November.

The shelter closed because it no longer had enough money to operate. Board of Directors Chairman Rusty Hall said a new board is evaluating how to reopen it.

Four new board members will be added at the meeting, along with four other board members who began right before the shelter closed. With all new faces governing the Humane Society, Hall said there will be a fresh outlook on the shelter's operations.

The Humane Society has been criticized by some volunteers and employees who said management and the board mistreated and did not listen to them and because of that the Humane Society lost community support and funding.

A sign that those complaints were heard is that Phil Genovar is now a Humane Society board member. Genovar's family started the shelter in 1946 and donated the property for it. But when the shelter closed, he said the board and management refused to allow him to help and that they pushed people and their donations away.

Hall said that since November, businesses have donated their time to improve the shelter, whose buildings are decades old. Some of these services include trimming trees on the property, assessing how to fix the building's septic tank and volunteering to help write grants for the shelter.

Also, Hall said that in February a team from the Jacksonville's Humane Society will look at how to improve St. Augustine's shelter.

Once the board gets a handle on what needs to be done to reopen the shelter, Hall said the members will look at the costs. And from there they will focus on raising funds, he said.